Patrol XP for Explore Badges is a Useless Bonus

[Frozen Burn]

I'm not sure why it was changed that exploration badges no longer give actual XP and now give patrol XP.  I wasn't thrilled about reading the patch note about this, but I've been trying to be open minded about it.  However, I've found it's mostly just wasted and no benefit at all.

 

1.  Typically when you log on, you are full of patrol XP - so gathering explore badges at the beginning of your play session makes the patrol XP awarded useless.

 

2.  If you collect badges at the end of your play session - again, the patrol XP will be useless because you're logging off and you will fill up anyway by the time you log back on.  Benefit useless.

 

3.  The only time to take advantage of the benefit of patrol XP awarding from explore badges is in the middle of your game play.  "Hold on teammates while I collect some explores so I can get some more patrol XP" - says no one.  No one will stop the TF/SF mission train they are on to do this. 

 

If someone grabs a couple explores between missions or while waiting for their team to fill for that TF/SF - there MIGHT be some use provided they've used enough already after logging on and have room for it.

 

4.  Being awarded real XP for explore badges was an instant benefit and it didn't matter when during your play session you hunted them - beginning, middle, or end.  Also, numerous times, I come out of a mission just 1 or 2 kills shy of a level, but I'm in a zone where mobs are too low level to award XP "but hey! I can grab these explores that I haven't collected yet!" and DING!  I've got my level before the next mission.  Yes, I can go to a level appropriate zone and hunt - but the real XP award from explore badges was benefit and a use too.

 

Hunting explore badges is something to do solo while you wait for your friends to log on, the team to form, or after you're done and your teammates/friends leave - and earning patrol XP at these times is pointless.  You typically don't want to interrupt your play session to seek these badges when the patrol XP bonus would be of any benefit.

 

....please change it back it back real XP?  

[arcane]

You do realize how long it takes to fill up on patrol xp from logging out, don’t you? Points 1 and 2 don’t make sense.

[Glacier Peak]

I was under the impression that Patrol XP continues to fill up the XP bar regardless of whether its full. Am I mistaken?

[Vanden]

I think there's quite a few players that play their characters more than frequently enough to use up all their normally accumulated patrol XP and can benefit from a little extra.

[SuggestorK]

it takes 10 days to fill it up , 1 bar of patrol XP per day logged off, 10 Bars or 1 Lvl is max u can have when u log back in after 10 or more days.

[Psi-bolt]

I think that this change requires a change in strategy.  I confess that I found myself not liking it at first for a different reason than you posit here.  In my case, I often would do 2-3 zones of explore badges at time.  In leveling a character after this went live, I found myself having to do one zone then burn that patrol exp, rinse and repeat.  I found that this actually wasn't so bad, but it does take a shift in thinking.  

 

I also recognize that not everyone keeps map mods on and can just grab the badges without looking for them so that might guide my thinking.    

 

To sum up, I think that this change isn't bad at all, but it's different.  Like the change to require 10 badges for LRT.  I didn't like that because it was a change, but in the main it wasn't a big deal.  I think when people get used to how explore rewards work it will become second nature.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

You do realize how long it takes to fill up on patrol xp from logging out, don’t you? Points 1 and 2 don’t make sense.

Points 1 and 2 make sense if you play several alts rather than just one (or two) characters.

[arcane]

13 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Points 1 and 2 make sense if you play several alts rather than just one (or two) characters.

I play tons of alts and am still likely to log in my favorites more than once every ten days.

[Frozen Burn]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

You do realize how long it takes to fill up on patrol xp from logging out, don’t you? Points 1 and 2 don’t make sense.

 

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

I think there's quite a few players that play their characters more than frequently enough to use up all their normally accumulated patrol XP and can benefit from a little extra.

 

1 hour ago, SuggestorK said:

it takes 10 days to fill it up , 1 bar of patrol XP per day logged off, 10 Bars or 1 Lvl is max u can have when u log back in after 10 or more days.

 

As @Rudra stated, I, like SO many others, have lots of alts.  Whether they are low level or lvl 50+ earning incarnate XP, pretty much all of them are maxed on patrol XP when I log them in because I rotate between characters (again, like so many other people as well).  

 

Yes, if you play 1 or 2 characters all the time, whether for short or long periods, you'll see some benefit from the patrol XP.  But I may know of only 1 maybe 2 people who fall into this category - doesn't mean there aren't more - but from my perspective, there are a lot of people who alt a lot and see little to no benefit from a patrol XP boost from exploration badge hunting.

 

As @Psi-bolt mentioned, yes, you have to now think about when you do your explore badge hunting.  Never had to before.  Just grab them when you can and get your reward.  Now, **IF** you want to leverage this benefit, you have strategize of how and when you're going to badge hunt.  That's a pain in the arse for something as simple as just collecting some explore badges.

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

17 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Points 1 and 2 make sense if you play several alts rather than just one (or two) characters.

I play tons of alts and am still likely to log in my favorites more than once every ten days.

Then @Frozen Burn's first 2 points should still make sense to you since your other characters, from the way you just described your play rotation, probably have max patrol xp when you log on them.

[arcane]

Also, the value of one bar of patrol xp is so much greater than the former amount of xp that you could literally be capped when you get the vast majority of your badges and still derive a net benefit from the change.

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Rudra said:

Then @Frozen Burn's first 2 points should still make sense to you since your other characters, from the way you just described your play rotation, probably have max patrol xp when you log on them.

See my latest post then.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

I was under the impression that Patrol XP continues to fill up the XP bar regardless of whether its full. Am I mistaken?

I'm still trying to figure out what this statement is saying, so am going to approach it two different ways.

 

If you have max patrol xp, yes it still fills your xp bar as you gain regular xp because you are using the patrol xp.

 

If you have max patrol xp, no, you can no longer gain patrol xp until you use some by gaining regular xp (edit: or debt).

Edited February 28 by Rudra

[Rudra]

7 minutes ago, arcane said:

See my latest post then.

This still feels like a change for change's sake that more benefits players with fewer alts or with preferred to play characters than it does players with many alts, especially if they don't have preferred to play characters. As opposed to the previous way it worked where everyone got the same benefit from finding the explore regardless of number of alts or frequency of play with said alts.

 

Edit: If they wanted to up the reward, they could have just upped the reward without having to change what award is being given.

Edited February 28 by Rudra

[Glacier Peak]

27 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I'm still trying to figure out what this statement is saying, so am going to approach it two different ways.

 

If you have max patrol xp, yes it still fills your xp bar as you gain regular xp because you are using the patrol xp.

 

If you have max patrol xp, no, you can no longer gain patrol xp until you use some by gaining regular xp (edit: or debt).

There is conflicting information, that's why my understanding is too.

 

Looking at the Homecoming wiki:  Patrol Experience

 

"For every 24 hours a character spends logged out, they accumulate 1 bar of Patrol XP, with a maximum of 10 bars. If a character has a number of Patrol XP bars that exceeds the number they need to level up, this extra experience carries over to their next Security/Threat Level."

 

But both you and my in-game example below says otherwise:

 

Sublimator had a full bar of Patrol XP and was then logged out for 37 days. There should at least be 3 additional levels worth of Patrol XP accumulated - (though my understanding is it scales with Level so the higher the character, the less it fills).

 

 

Based on this in game example, however, it appears Patrol XP stops once the XP bar is filled (though a Level's worth of Patrol XP may spill in to the next level). 

Edited February 28 by Glacier Peak

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Glacier Peak said:

There is conflicting information, that's why my understanding is too.

 

Looking at the Homecoming wiki:  Patrol Experience

 

"For every 24 hours a character spends logged out, they accumulate 1 bar of Patrol XP, with a maximum of 10 bars. If a character has a number of Patrol XP bars that exceeds the number they need to level up, this extra experience carries over to their next Security/Threat Level."

 

But both you and my in-game example below says otherwise:

 

Sublimator had a full bar of Patrol XP and was then logged out for 37 days. There should at least be 3 additional levels worth of Patrol XP accumulated - (though my understanding is it scales with Level so the higher the character, the less it fills).

 

 

Based on this in game example, however, it appears Patrol XP stops once the XP bar is filled. 

The way patrol xp works if it exceeds the current level of the characters, is the "excess" patrol xp carries over to the next level. However, it is still tracked/calculated for how much you can have from your current level. So say you have 9 bars of xp filled and then log off that character for 10 days. When you log back on that character, you will have the full max allowed patrol xp for that character, 10 bars of patrol xp for that level without regard for how much xp you already have. So you use (less than) 1 bar of patrol xp leveling up to the next level. At your new level, it takes more xp to fill each bar, but you still retain the patrol xp you had already accumulated. That total value didn't change, but the value per bar did, so you would see less bars of patrol xp available than the 9 you had left from before leveling.

[Glacier Peak]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The way patrol xp works if it exceeds the current level of the characters, is the "excess" patrol xp carries over to the next level. However, it is still tracked/calculated for how much you can have from your current level. So say you have 9 bars of xp filled and then log off that character for 10 days. When you log back on that character, you will have the full max allowed patrol xp for that character, 10 bars of patrol xp for that level without regard for how much xp you already have. So you use (less than) 1 bar of patrol xp leveling up to the next level. At your new level, it takes more xp to fill each bar, but you still retain the patrol xp you had already accumulated. That total value didn't change, but the value per bar did, so you would see less bars of patrol xp available than the 9 you had left from before leveling.

Math... ah that explains why I struggle!

[Lazarillo]

Personally, I like the change.  It results in significantly greater XP over a medium duration.  Yes, it means zero if you have a character that's logged off for 10 days and then you immediately log in and do a bunch of badge hunting.  Yes, it's not "immediate delivery".  But on the flip side, the amount that was previously rewarded wasn't ever likely to bump your level up significantly in the past, but in the current system, I can pick a few exploration badges prior to an Apex/Tin Mage on a recent-50, and finish such a double-header with 50% more Vet level progress.  That's beefy.

[Jimmy]

The main intent of this change was to make exploration more rewarding - specifically exploration in the course of your normal gameplay rather than just a standalone dedicated activity (for those players, the badges are the main draw, so it didn't need much more of an incentive). Boosting the amount of XP from exploration badges wasn't really an option, as it would need to be a massive amount to have any real impact.

 

Patrol XP was a thematically-relevant middle ground that ticked all the boxes. It's now very rewarding to collect exploration badges as you travel the game world during your levelling journey. Significantly more rewarding than it used to be.

 

There are of course some corner cases where the benefit is "lost", but the amount of XP you gained beforehand was so tiny that we feel the trade-off is overall very worth it for the average player.

[Rudra]

9 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

The main intent of this change was to make exploration more rewarding - specifically exploration in the course of your normal gameplay rather than just a standalone dedicated activity (for those players, the badges are the main draw, so it didn't need much more of an incentive). Boosting the amount of XP from exploration badges wasn't really an option, as it would need to be a massive amount to have any real impact.

 

Patrol XP was a thematically-relevant middle ground that ticked all the boxes. It's now very rewarding to collect exploration badges as you travel the game world during your levelling journey. Significantly more rewarding than it used to be.

 

There are of course some corner cases where the benefit is "lost", but the amount of XP you gained beforehand was so tiny that we feel the trade-off is overall very worth it for the average player.

I disagree, but I don't think anyone is surprised by that.

[Player2]

I just wanted to point out that I started a new stalker this winter and after 6 levels in Atlas Park, I decided to go badge hunting.  I leveled up to 24 exclusively on badge XP, and I'm pretty sure I missed some stuff like the obvious level-restricted zones like The Hive.

[Frozen Burn]

46 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

The main intent of this change was to make exploration more rewarding - specifically exploration in the course of your normal gameplay rather than just a standalone dedicated activity (for those players, the badges are the main draw, so it didn't need much more of an incentive). Boosting the amount of XP from exploration badges wasn't really an option, as it would need to be a massive amount to have any real impact.

 

Patrol XP was a thematically-relevant middle ground that ticked all the boxes. It's now very rewarding to collect exploration badges as you travel the game world during your levelling journey. Significantly more rewarding than it used to be.

 

There are of course some corner cases where the benefit is "lost", but the amount of XP you gained beforehand was so tiny that we feel the trade-off is overall very worth it for the average player.

 

Thank you for the explanation of the reasoning behind the change.  I appreciate you weighing in on this and elaborating.

 

However, like @Rudra, I too do not agree.  This is an extremely biased benefit now.  For some and how they play, it's fine; and others are completely losing out.  The change clearly favors some over others.  It was a system that didn't need "fixing" or upgrading.  

 

And as @Player2 stated - at low levels, the XP awarded is significant enough to gain levels.  I've done this too when my friends have logged off for the night and I want to catch up to the next level, or I've logged on early to get that level before my friends show up and we start rolling.   

 

And do the Devs really want us to stop our "course of normal gameplay" to slow down and explore the zones and badge hunt?  If the idea is to just pick up one two along the way to a mission or during a hunt mission... okay... but you have to come back later and collect the remainder in the zone, and that is usually done at the end or beginning of gameplay when the majority of patrol XP is useless.  This reasoning still does not make sense to me.  

 

But again, thanks for taking the time to chime in and let me know how this all came about.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

The main intent of this change was to make exploration more rewarding - specifically exploration in the course of your normal gameplay 

Here's another thing about this comment specifically. If the character is flying, teleporting, or super jumping, the likelihood of them still missing the explore enroute to their mission, assuming it even is in their path of travel, is still extremely high. So in the course of normal game play, anyone using a travel power that isn't Super Speed or Speed of Sound is still going to miss that patrol xp reward and then have to go back after they are done teaming or playing through normal game play to get it. So you are still missing the mark.

 

(Edit: This is why everyone I know that hunts explore and history badges does so either at the start of their play session or at the end of their play session. The times when the patrol xp reward is meaningless.)

Edited February 29 by Rudra

[Greycat]

17 hours ago, Jimmy said:

The main intent of this change was to make exploration more rewarding - specifically exploration in the course of your normal gameplay rather than just a standalone dedicated activity (for those players, the badges are the main draw, so it didn't need much more of an incentive). Boosting the amount of XP from exploration badges wasn't really an option, as it would need to be a massive amount to have any real impact.

 

Patrol XP was a thematically-relevant middle ground that ticked all the boxes. It's now very rewarding to collect exploration badges as you travel the game world during your levelling journey. Significantly more rewarding than it used to be.

 

There are of course some corner cases where the benefit is "lost", but the amount of XP you gained beforehand was so tiny that we feel the trade-off is overall very worth it for the average player.

 

So. I'm not a badger. I grab the badges in Atlas for the transport power, maybe look for a couple specifically I like the title or location of (Tank and Destined for Valhalla especially.)

 

I started up a new character yesterday and... y'know what? The patrol XP wasn't fun. Yes, we only got a tiny bit of XP for the explores before, but the "Oh, I leveled!" ding actually *was* fun. I did actually glance at the XP bar when I was done with an arc, found it *very* close... and then felt kind of let down because with the stuff I'd run over on the way by, I could've leveled.

 

Essentially what you've done is removed people getting presents for christmas in lieu of a membership at a store where they'll get 10% off their purchase after three months. I know *I'd* rather get the nicely wrapped box with something inside rather than the envelope with a receipt in it. Exploration was rewarding *before.* Now it's a ... meh part of the experience.

[arcane]

19 hours ago, Jimmy said:

The main intent of this change was to make exploration more rewarding - specifically exploration in the course of your normal gameplay rather than just a standalone dedicated activity (for those players, the badges are the main draw, so it didn't need much more of an incentive). Boosting the amount of XP from exploration badges wasn't really an option, as it would need to be a massive amount to have any real impact.

 

Patrol XP was a thematically-relevant middle ground that ticked all the boxes. It's now very rewarding to collect exploration badges as you travel the game world during your levelling journey. Significantly more rewarding than it used to be.

 

There are of course some corner cases where the benefit is "lost", but the amount of XP you gained beforehand was so tiny that we feel the trade-off is overall very worth it for the average player.

It’s a good change. The reward is orders of magnitude greater. Thank you.